Silence and Stars
by Tallulah Grammar Songstress
Summary: Two short fics, one about Kaneda, one about Tetsuo. Put separately from my other short fics as they need to be rated R.


(A/N: Two slightly weird drabbles here.  "Silence" is written from Kai's POV, and will probably only make much sense if you've read the manga (basically, it's implied in that Kaneda slept with the Eighth District Vocational Training School nurse and got her pregnant.)  Anyway, I don't own Kaneda, Kai, the school nurse or Tetsuo.)

Silence

            "Nice to see the old place again, isn't it?"  Kaneda's feet crunch over the crumbled steps, crushing tufts of grass.

            "Just _great," _I say. 

            "Come on.  It's our old school.  It's now a desolate ruin.  What's not to like?"

            "I don't really wanna be near it even when it's ruined."

            "Well, I want to have a little memory lane tour, so tough shit.  Stop moaning, Kai."

            I shrug, and follow him through the piles of rubble which I _think _used to form our science wing.

            "Hey, look," Kaneda says as we reach the doors.  "My name's still carved into the wall there."

            "And that pic you drew of the principal taking a shit behind a bush.  Even a psychic apocalypse can't stop fine art, can it?"

            I hope Kaneda will want to look for more graffiti – graffiti on the _outside _of the building – but he doesn't, he pushes at the battered doors and says, "So let's go already."

            "What if we go in there and it collapses on us?"

            "That hasn't happened with any of the other buildings we've been hiding out in."

            "Maybe that's because we stay in buildings that aren't right next to Ground Zero."  
            "Well, _I _don't think it's going to fall down yet.  And if it looks dodgy we can just walk out again."

            So we sneak through the main hallway.  For the first time ever, the sun shines on us as we do.

            The dingy corridors look almost normal.  Same old battered green lockers lining the walls.  Some have popped open in the blast, and books, jumpers, apples and chocolate bars have spilt out onto the floor, leaving skids across the dust.

            I wonder how many people died here.  I wonder how many of them we knew.

            Kaneda walks down the corridor like nothing's bothering him, but he doesn't speak.

            And now things are starting to crumble.  Great cracks in the wall, splitting the graffiti up into random chunks.  The lights all blew out, and glass crunches under our feet, mingling with the cans, cigarette ends, crisp packets they always had scattered in this place.  Trailing wires above our heads.

            "'Our main goal is the teaching of decent human values,'" I parrot to Kaneda, trying to shake off the unease, and he snickers, and replies, "'This school is your last chance!'  Ha, we lasted longer than the Eighth District Youth Prison!  We rule!"

            "We lasted longer than a lot of other people too," I mutter, but he doesn't – or pretends not to – hear me.

            "Always wanted to see this.  The hellhole's been wrecked at last!"

            "Yeah.  And how the angels weep." 

            And then the corridor stops as if someone bit off the end.  Through the hole we can see the silent, jumbled sea of wreckage that's what passes for home these days.  It's the silence that always gets me.  I'm not used to it.

            "Let's not go that way," Kaneda says.

            We turn back and down another corridor.  I try and remember what time it was when the city got levelled.  Everyone would've been in classrooms, wouldn't they?  I decide I'll talk Kaneda out of looking in any more rooms because _that's _where they'll all still be if they did die here –

            Then I notice Kaneda pulling open the door to the infirmary.  _Damn._

"What're –"

            "Oh, fucking hell," Kaneda murmurs, and then he seems to freeze.

            I push him out of the way.

            Most of the ceiling fell down in here.  The breeze flicks at my hair.  But I can still recognise the familiar bed and screen and desk, dusty, rain-worn, and the bookcase, which has toppled over – oh hell – the bookcase, which has toppled over –

            "She's – it is her," Kaneda says.  His voice has gone harsh.  "Isn't it?"

            The school nurse is lying under the bookcase.  What's left of her, anyway.  I recognise the scraps of pink overall round her bones.  There's a few spots of blood on the floor.  Maybe there was more once and it got washed away.      

            Everything is silent.

            "Let's go," he says, letting the door swing closed.

            He's completely quiet until we're outside again.  I take a few deep breaths, and find myself glancing down at my hands, my arms, wriggling in my clothes, just to remind myself _I'm alive, I've got flesh on my bones, I didn't die and get eaten by rats or whatever, and it's only another body anyway, we see enough of those…_

"Stupid fucking bitch let the kid die too," he says as we hurry back to our bikes. 

            I don't ask him what he means.

Stars

Even though it was night now, the car was still hot and stuffy.  Tetsuo Shima leant his head against the warm glass, and stared out at the motorway spiralling past them.  He felt sick.  He always felt sick on long car journeys, and this one seemed the longest he'd ever been on. 

            They were kicking him out because he was too old to stay.  That home had been for babies, not big boys who were seven now. 

_            They were kicking him out because they didn't want him any more, just like Mummy and Daddy had._

"How long till we get there?" he asked.

            "Not long now." 

            They always said that.  It was always long.

            Outside the buildings seemed to touch the sky.  He wondered if the people in them were ever frightened they'd fall when they looked down.  So many windows, making a city of hard little stars.  He tried to count them, but it made his head hurt.

            The traffic had stopped now.  He knelt up on the seat to see if they had arrived, but they hadn't.  They'd just stopped because they were part of a long line of cars and no one was moving.

            "Why've we stopped?"

            "We just have."

            "I want to put the window down.  I feel sick."

            "Okay, you do that, then."

            Tetsuo wound the window down, and stuck his head out into the night air.  It cooled the sweat on his face and forehead, flicked at his hair.

            He could smell food – fried and greasy, maybe rice, maybe curry, but he was hungry.  He ate the smell of it instead, even though it was all mixed up with petrol and sweat and dirt.  One of the big TV screens was reading the news, and he could hear the lady's extra-serious voice echoing out over the beep of car horns around them.  Two people further down the queue were having an argument.

            And below all that he could hear a sort of low roar, so low after a while you didn't notice it.  Maybe traffic.  Maybe millions of people walking or shouting.  Did you get used to it if you lived here?

            There were a few other kids in some of the cars around him, but he didn't bother to wave and smile. 

            "Put the window down now, Tetsuo.  We're moving."

(break)

This children's home was different; right away he could tell it wasn't for little kids.  There weren't any crayon pictures on the walls; and everything was too high for him; and he could hear louder voices, and hear heavier footsteps dashing about all around him.

            As he was led down the corridor – the lady was smiling at him and she wasn't dragging him, she was gently holding his hand – he heard people whispering about him.  Why was it always about him?

            The kids at the old place had said it was really scary here.  They'd said _they hit you _and _they make you eat dead rats for breakfast _and stuff like that.  He knew most of those stories weren't true, but it was easier to know that when you weren't going to find out for sure.

            He was sharing a bedroom with two other boys.  Both of them were older than him and he could see they didn't really want a little kid hanging around.

            He lay in bed and listened to the city roaring.  The sheets smelt different; liked they'd been washed harder.  The bed was very cold.  And streetlights kept lashing the floor, making him jump.

            The two boys were whispering, snickering – he saw torchlight burn under the covers.  He wondered what they were doing, but he didn't dare climb out of bed and ask.       

            "Hey, you… kid… wanna see something funny?"

            He sat up a little, not sure how to answer.  When someone asked you something like that, it usually meant they wanted to make you look stupid whatever you said.

            "What is it?" he asked. 

            "Don't show him, he'll tell on us," the other boy said.

            "Ssh… I wanna see his face…"

            They were looking at a comic book.  He could see it in the boy's lap.

            "Do you want to see it or not?"

            If he said no, they'd probably shove it in his face anyway just because.  So he nodded, and the boy turned the book round –

            A picture of a lady with no clothes on, blood pouring all over her white skin –

Tetsuo yelped, and they both cracked up. 

            "Aw, poor ickle baby, you frightened him!"

            "Sheesh, learn to live a little.  _Kid."___

"I'm not scared!" he yelled.

            "_Sure _you're not.  It's only a comic book."

He curled up under the sheet again, and let them laugh, and stared at the sky through the gap in the curtains, trying to find some stars among the city glow.


End file.
